Agriculture Committee on May 12th, 2010

[Peter Elderkin]

I can start.

Concerning research, it has to be regional. There is a lack of understanding between regions, as Patricia said, of how things work. Out west they really do not understand how we make a living off small acreages of anything, or small acreages of a number of things. We don't have sections of apples. We don't have sections of crops. We have 50 acres of apples and four acres of pears. We have diversity. We grow peaches. It is important that we keep the research here.

I have, over the years, been involved in probably two, three, maybe even four times, in trying to obtain a supply-managed system for fruit. Apples were in free trade before Parliament implemented free trade with the U.S. It didn't work for apples at the time. It still hasn't worked--and I don't think it has worked. There is certainly merit for a situation of supply management with an income stabilization. Income stabilization addresses the farm debt situation. There have to be other ways in there--the potential of pensions for farmers.

In my situation--and this may be a different concept in today's world--if I had a pension, I would have no problem giving my farm to my sons. Under today's existing situation, we'd have to be very careful, because when you look at the financial circumstances of my farm, I could be charged with child abuse if I did give my farm to my kids because of what I am putting them into. If we throw in a system of income stabilization, they would be able to handle their debts. With income stabilization it covers their debts, it covers their expenses, it covers the programs. It covers their access. It helps people get in there. It helps the banks know that they will be paid. If we have a program so that the retiring farmer doesn't have to worry about what he is going to do to pay his bills after he retires, he's there. He still maintains the ability. The expertise stays there.

There are little things we have to do. We have to allow the retiring farmer to put a house on the corner of his property.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We are way out of time, I'm sorry.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Are any of the other--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You used three-quarters of your time up, Mr. Brison, but I'll allow somebody else to comment briefly. I'll try to be flexible here.

[An hon. member]

He could have your time.

[Patricia Bishop]

No, there's not enough time.

[An hon. member]

There are so many issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Please be as brief as possible.

[Cammie Harbottle]

I just wanted to address the issue of land, quickly. I know that's an issue in speaking with young farmers across the country. The land bank system of tenure... I can see that a problem in looking at that would be that it would be a constant draw on federal funds to pay the difference between the seller's cost and making it affordable to younger farmers. So in looking at a system or a model such as a community land trust, it would only require a certain set amount of federal funds. If it were set up regionally, for example, in Nova Scotia, the government would have to put in an initial amount of money to purchase or accumulate farms from farmers, and that could also happen through donations. As soon as those farms were able to be leased out to other farmers, there would be an income coming in, which could then be recirculated into purchasing more farms, putting them into land trusts. This would protect the land and keep it in agricultural production while making it affordable to new farmers, while paying out older farmers at a rate that would allow them to retire and possibly stay on the land as long as they wanted to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Could I just ask the members—because it's my job to see that everybody gets a chance to ask their questions—to use your time to ask pointed questions? If we could ask for pointed answers, that would allow for better use of time.

Ms. Bonsant for five minutes.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

I am going to ask my questions in French.

My trip from Ontario to here was very pleasant. This area is a bit like northern Quebec. I have noticed two things. Young people have a passion for farming, and no one wants to help them. No bank wants to lend them money. I have also noticed that older people are willing to turn over their farms, but not at any price.

Mr. Moxsom said that 10 or 15 years ago, there were a number of government programs in place. We are spoiled in Quebec, because the provincial government supports farming. Do you think that governments should have two programs, a loan guarantee program to help buy farms and a minimum income program to guarantee some stability and help young farmers overcome obstacles? If there were programs for land clearing or whatever, if young people had a decent enough income to live and not just survive, they could handle the farm, pay their debts and so on.

[Patricia Bishop]

I'll speak to that.

Definitely, when I went to purchase our farm, we did have to work really hard at trying to find the funds to be able to come down with our down payment. It's not very easy to get that much money, to have saved that much, when you've just come out of university or a college of some kind or you've been training somewhere. It's a lot of money. If there was some way to have loans that were more accessible to young farmers, that would be extremely helpful.

When you say to live, not just survive, I very much appreciate that comment, because definitely in 25 or 30 years you can see how you can eventually live, but it is a struggle to get from now until then, to have some quality of life that is comparable to that if we were to do other things and have other kinds of businesses or work in this world.

Both of those ideas that you've suggested I think would be very helpful and useful to new entrants into agriculture.

[Cammie Harbottle]

I'd just like to add one thing to that.

I agree with what Patricia was saying. There was one thing I found particularly hard in accessing financing. I didn't have to come up with a mortgage for the land, but I did have to come up with capital for infrastructure and start-up expenses. Because I didn't own the land, even though I had a 99-year renewable lease on that land, which is as secure as ownership, no financial institution and no government program would recognize that as equity for securing a loan. So I couldn't access any other loan and had to hodge-podge together personal private loans, put out all my sources, local programs for entrepreneurs. A lot of new farmers don't own land; they're also leasing land. We have to have loan guarantees that are accessible to farmers who do not have the equity to begin with.

[Peter Elderkin]

My answer to that is yes, I'm very pleased to hear... Those programs would be great. I'm extremely pleased. When I say if we take it to the poverty level, that's the first step. I think it's very impressive to hear you say to live, not just to survive. That's very important.

There are methods out there to allow this. As I said before, if I knew my retirement was secure, I'd have no problem giving my farm to the kids. I have no problem preserving my farm in exchange for debt reduction or that type of thing. I've had people come and I let them use my land. I had a Korean immigrant who wanted to try to grow Korean vegetables. He asked how much I wanted for it, and I said, well, no, you can use it. I'm not using this piece this year. And I provided it for cultivation; I provided the little bit of pesticides needed.

There is cooperation out there. We do these types of things. Farmers do this type of thing for each other. We work together.

Patricia and I are on opposite ends of land preservation. Right now we're on different sides, but we both believe in the same thing, that we need to preserve the agricultural base of Canada. I'm firmly supportive that we need to save the farmer, to save the land. But as a farmer, I am not prepared to be the one to pay. Right now, we are using our equity to feed this country.

As far as the question on how we are...we do not realize how much the system in this country, with two buyers and two sellers, is costing this country now. It costs us a lot. We need to do this. Until the people pay for it, until we start subsidizing and protecting farmers, be it supply management or guaranteed income, then we will not know what it costs us. And it is costing us a lot. We need to get in there. We need to have farmers survive. There are a lot of things out there that people will do.

In my family, I'm sure if everyone had sold over the generations to the next family member, we would not be here now, in our 250th year this year.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Peter.

Mr. Allen, you have five minutes.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you everyone for being here. It's interesting.

Ms. Bishop, I know you wanted to reply to one of the questions Mr. Brison asked. You seemed quite anxious to do that. So since we are in Mr. Brison's home riding, I'm willing to give the first of my five minutes to Mr. Brison's question, if you wanted to reply to that. We do want to hear fulsomely what folks are thinking.

[Patricia Bishop]

Thank you.

He mentioned the question about opportunities, and I think we can definitely broaden our market opportunities. We can and we should. That's one of the reasons why it's so important that we continue to have our research here in our region, to be able to develop those opportunities and to be able to move them forward.

Also, I think there is a strong argument in the market access department that we do need to look at ourselves as a region. We are three very independent and unique provinces, but we are also a region that has a lot of similarities. So I think there's great merit in looking at ourselves as a region in terms of our marketing.

I wanted to make those couple of comments. Of course, I think that land banking and different ways of thinking about our land are incredibly critical. We have the same issue across this country, and all over our agricultural districts, around good agricultural land and how we maintain that land in those locations where they have good access to the marketplace and already have a lot of investment put into it to ensure that it remains in agricultural production. So land banking is one of the tools that we need to be seriously looking at across the country, I think.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I appreciate that.

My riding is in the Niagara Peninsula, one of the premier fruit-growing regions in this country. We just about lost our research station in Vineland, which actually developed some of the finest cultivars for peaches, pears, and plums, and of course it was able to grow vinifera grapes; otherwise you wouldn't have Canadian wine in the Niagara Peninsula without that research station. It just about closed two years ago, and it took the wine industry specifically, as well as growers, to make sure it stayed. Fortunately for us, it has. So I couldn't agree more about the research price.

In talking to all of you about this chain, because you are a piece of this chain that makes food and you are primary producers that finally get it to folks like me, who purchase it...I'd like you to comment, if you can, about this chain and if there is an end price that consumers pay. Along that chain, there's a whole pile of folks who peck away at that price. Do you have some suggestions or any ideas as to how...? I've heard things about supply management, which I absolutely agree with, but are there things inside that chain that you see are really either cumbersome for you or an impediment to you becoming profitable, or that we need to look at in a way that says we need to do this differently? It seems to me that along the chain there are a lot of folks who peck away at that profitability, which should be at the primary end but it ends up in someone else's hands.

If anyone wants to kick off with that, I'd appreciate it.

[Curtis Moxsom]

I'd like to start on that and the milk issue part of it. We get roughly 70¢ a litre at the farm gate for our milk; that's what we get per month's pay cheque. I think we're pretty near the highest in Canada, besides Newfoundland, for milk in the stores, compared to Ontario and Quebec. Ontario and Quebec farmers get roughly the same as we do when we're in this P-5.

I may be stepping out of line, but I feel there's too much gouging going on between what we get at the farm gate and what Mrs. Retailer pays at the store. I think the stores charge a shelf space fee. The processors say they have to have x amount to market the milk and so on. I don't feel it's justifiable. We can't sell raw milk ourselves off the farm. There are marketing boards and licences and so on.

There was a court case in Ontario. Some businesses have tried to apply for a raw milk licence, and it can't be done. You can sell your vegetables and meats and produce like that at roadside markets, but you can't sell raw milk.

I feel there's a gap that needs to be tightened up between what the consumer is paying and what we're getting at the farm.

I would also like to see programs put into place, and guaranteed loans like the rest of them have spoken about, for the young farmers to get started, as I said earlier.

Going back to BSE, I don't feel the federal government has compensated the farmers that are in business or going to be in business properly for the actions that were taken in that, and for the loss of income we've suffered since 2003.

I would like to see the federal government keep supply management. I think it's worked well in the dairy sector. I understand some of the farmers in the United States are looking at it now. They envy our supply management, and that's good.

Does that answer your question, sir?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Allen.

Mr. Armstrong, five minutes.

[Patricia Bishop]

Is that over?

[Curtis Moxsom]

Sorry, Pat, I took this one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay, go ahead, Mrs. Bishop.

Just to remind everybody, I'm operating under the same rules that everybody knows. There are five minutes per question and answer to get a round.

[Patricia Bishop]

We all have to be faster.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

The numbers are kept for each time, so I'm not gypping anybody.

Anyway, Mrs. Bishop.